The Ministers ran to the shut windowpanes. They leaned over each other to get a look out the glass. Then they recoiled, they staggered backward, wringing their hands. There was not a single Jew on the street below. No wonder: a To-tenkopfer battalion stood at intervals of two meters the whole length of Dworska, on both sides of the street. Between those lines, in command of everything, was the Mighty One, Grundtripp himself.

Surrounded.

“It’s the leapfroggers!” cried Mordechai Kleen.

“Remember Putermilch! Remember Anton Schneour! They’ll do the same to us as the first Judenrat!”

Thus the memory, long suppressed, of Mosk jumping over Plumb’s back, and Blum over Szapiro’s, came back to each of the hostages trapped in the hot, airless room.

Gutfreind, still by the window, cried out in alarm, “Look! It’s falling!”

The Ministers knew immediately what those words portended. The sun, which had been at the peak of its orbit, was now like an egg yolk slipping down the glossy side of the sky.

Urinstein looked at his wristwatch. “Not much time!” he groaned.

“Not much time for what?” asked Rabbi Lunt. “What’s going on? Everything is completely dark.”

The one-eared Nomberg stepped forward. “Fellow rabbis, we need your guidance. You must make a decision for the Judenrat.”

“Why bother with us? No one asked us whether horsemeat was kosher.” That from Wolf-Kitzes.

The Descendant of Yaakov-Yitzhak, the Pshiskher, stroked from habit the missing half of his beard. “On what subject do you wish a ruling?”

“The Others have given us until sundown to give them a list,” Nomberg explained. “On this list there must be fifty Jewish names. These citizens will be transported to the fatherland of the Race of Masters.”

“Reduced from one hundred!” cried Verble. “Don’t leave that out!”

“Oh!” There was a tiny, high-pitched shriek, and Lunt, originally from Yambol, fell flat on the floor.

“He’s fainted!”

The members rushed over and began to slap at the rabbi’s bruised face. “Wake up! Wake up!” shouted the Minister of Water and Power. “It’s not what you think! They are only going to work on a farm!”

Lunt nonetheless could not be roused. The Ministers cleared room for him among the plates and glasses on the table. They laid him carefully down. Then Nomberg turned to the three remaining sages.

“What is your conclusion? Give us your advice.”

“Advice? Nothing could be more simple.” Wolf-Kitzes was keeping his hands crossed in front of his gray underdrawers. “It is written, The Law is the Law. Draw up the list of names.”

The oboist, Kleen: “And does the Prince of the Pious agree?”

Everyone turned to the Pshiskher, whose opinion was worth more than that of any single Jew. “If the whole may be saved by the loss of the part, then the lesser evil must be done.”

“My position exactly,” Nomberg replied. “After all, if the few refused to go, wouldn’t they be guilty of an injury to the many?”

Rabbi Wolf-Kitzes: “The fifty are the lucky ones! Chosen to sanctify God’s Holy Name!”